Do you have stories about your life that you would like to share with our readers? Greekamericangirl.com is hosting a Hellenic Creative Writing Forum for you to post your stories, both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, art, illustrations, posters, film, mini-documentaries, photos ANYTHING CREATIVE.

There are three criteria:

you must be young (up to 20 years old)

you must be of Hellenic descent (OK if you are a half-breed or quarter-breed demi-gods OK )

it must be good (we’ll be the judge of that)

What you get out of it:

bragging rights

a signed autographed copy of the book “Being a Greek American Girl”

a chance to intern/write for a cool media machine

a date with John Stamos (sike! just a joke! but you can have a free visualization exercise where you can imagine going on a date with John Stamos)

Send your submissions to info@greekamericangirl.com

As a first installment, we have a memoir anonymously submitted by Maria K. It’s awesome because it’s sad but true, and the writing is dynamite.

Rock Bottom

by Maria K

Your high school years are supposed to be the most memorable years of your life. You meet new people, become (somewhat) independent, and get a chance to figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life. Some of us however, get lost in all the madness and end up on the wrong path. This is my story- my mistakes, which shaped me to be the person I am today.

They say once you hit rock bottom you can only go up from there. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for me. Once I hit rock bottom, I just kept sinking and sinking.

I was always a good kid growing up. I listened to my parents, got no less than 90’s in school. I was kind and I always tried to make everybody around me happy. I always had loved reading, and couldn’t help but be proud of myself every time I went home with a “reader of the month” certificate in my folder. I wasn’t the brightest of the student, but I always worked my hardest, and every time I got 100 on my spelling tests, yiayia would make me my own little tray of the stickiest, gooiest most finger licking good baklava. Who wouldn’t work hard for a reward like that?

I grew up in a very loving home. My mother and father were so in love- they looked like something out of a movie. The always laughed together and held hands wherever they went- which is very unusual for old fashion Greek couples. They worked together ate together, they were joint at the hip and I had never seen a happier couple. I remember clearly, on Sundays, which was my parents days off, we would all pile up in the big white expedition, blast Greek music, and make our way to Toys R Us. Each Sunday my brother and I got a brand new toy (no budget of course), a tradition that eventually died off when we started asking for iPods and new scooters every week.

My brother and I were inseparable, as well as my little sister after she was born in 2002. Our days revolved around training our Pokémon on our Gameboy’s while sitting on our front stoops with all our cousins and the kids from the block, playing with the hose in the backyard, and often shooting basketballs (me always failing miserably) at the 10 foot basketball hoop in the back yard that papou had gotten for Christmas. My knees were always bruised up; my elbows always full of scabs. I can honestly say I wouldn’t want to spend my childhood any other way. I am a product of the outdoors, the 50 cent ices from the deli on the corner, and from the razor scooters races down the hill around the block (which is accountable for my brother’s chipped tooth).

My grandmother has lived with me for all of my life. From when I turned 40 days old, and my mother had to go back my world, my yiayia’s arms have become something along the lines of my mothers. Yiayia is very old fashion Greek. She has lived in America for 20 years, but still looks exactly as though she lives in the xorio in Mathraki. All black mandili, black podia, black stocking, all black everything. She was born and raised on a isolated island in the middle of nowhere. The only thing she ever learned was how to pick the olives form the trees and how to take care of the animals (she doesn’t even know how to write her name). Married off at so young- which was the norm in the 40’s, my yiayia has been to hell and back- multiple fucking times. Her husband came to America to work, make money so he can bring her, my mother and my mom’s three sisters here to live. The dream back then was to leave the nisi, and go to New York. My papou lasted here 47 days before some drunken malaka ran a stop sign and killed him. My mother, who was only one at the time, grew up being abused by her uncle’s. My yiayia, never daring to speak out of course, made so many sacrifices to keep her family together. Chira by her late 30’s, poor yiayia never got to live the dreams sixoremenos papous wanted. Instead, after my mom married off, as well as her other daughters, she came with us to live in the United States. Ever since then she has put every individual in my family before herself. Always begging me to eat something, staying up late until I get home after parties, waiting for my call the second I get out of school, she’s a worry rat but I understand why she worries so much. And no matter what, she always reminds me “Kanis den tha se agapisi pio poli apo tin yiayia kai tin mama”.

I know everything sounds pretty perfect, and that’s how it was up until 2007. Things started to fall apart when my dad cheated on my mom with the bitch upstairs. Growing up, I was daddy’s little princess, so all this crap hit me hard. Because I was the first born girl, my dad and I had a relationship that was inseparable. My father was my hero. I saw him as the best man in the world and I loved him unconditionally. When Maria said jump baba said how high. Summers were the most memorable. We would open up the back seats in the expedition, open the sunroof, blast some Elena Paparizou and gather my aunt Kiki, my siblings, and my mother and take a two hour trip out to matt-a-mar marina out in Mattituck long island. Matt-a-Mar was like a second home for me. All our aunts and uncles would plan to be there and bring the family every weekend. We would leave the house at 8 in the morning- sharp, kiss yiyia goodbye and spend the whole day in long island. The men would all go fishing on my dad’s boat, and the women with all the children stayed at the private pool. Afterwords, all of us (about 25-30 people) would BBQ souvlakia, hotdogs, and burgers, on the grills. With our sun burnt skin and hair smelling like charcoal, we would all pile in the car afterwords and make it home by 12 pm. This was a tradition for every weekend in our summers, and I can still smell the Aloe Vera my mom would put on my sun burnt back after, whenever I think back. My dad would bend over backwards for his family and do anything to see us smile and make us happy. I guess he though fucking my neighbor would make us happy too.

The one thing I hate his guts for was because he used me. I was only 11, and I didn’t know any better, but I still can’t help but feel like their separation was my fault. I still remember the first time the motherfucker made me cover up for him. He called me when I got home from school and asked me to do him a favor, and me oblivious to what a cunt he was, I agreed. He asked me to hide the Verizon phone bill that came in the mail, because he went over his minutes and he didn’t ma to get mad. I obeyed. This went on for a few months until one night; mama was doing her annual Friday cleaning, and found a Verizon bill under the couch. Caught red handed. “Maria” she told me, “did you put this here?” “oxi ma, why would I do that?” she gave me that look that always made me shit my pants, and of course I started to cry. “emena min mou les psemata, ego se genisa maria.” And bam. I spilled all the beans to mama. She had a look on her face that I didn’t understand at the time. I later found out that she had her suspicions, and when I had told her about the phone bills it just confirmed it. I don’t remember much from when everything started. They are only some things that stuck in my mind. I remember coming home from Greek school at Saint Irene’s on a Saturday, and walking in the house seeing my mom with a torn white shirt, bloodshot eyes and a cigarette in her mouth. I remember her sitting at the dining table across from me and asking me to go over to her. She gave me a hug, and started to cry and asked me to please be a good girl and please never leave her side. I remember crying. I remember being a cross the street, hiding behind the car with my cousin, looking at my dad sitting downstairs on the stoop with that stupid bitch and giving her a kiss on the cheek. I remember my mom losing 40 pounds, and smelling like alcohol and cigarettes all the time.

The countless fucking times I had to see my mother cry over an asshole who doesn’t deserve to even be spit on. I remember listening for the downstairs door to open, waiting for my daddy to come home. Where had he been? Where was he sleeping? I remember having a chair in front of the peep hole in the door, sitting there and waiting for my dad to come home, but instead, seeing him walk right past our house and take his ass upstairs, to her house. The most vivid memory I have was when I was in Greece, and he came to “surprise” me. I remember my other yiayia finding the red thong in his suitcase and confronting him about it. He ended up having a complete mental breakdown and trying to kill himself. Before he put the gun to his head however, I remember he was on the phone with someone here in the states, and he was yelling at the top of his “I don’t give a fuck about my children, I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore, I don’t want to live, sto dialo na pane oli tous!” hearing those works come out of his mouth literally shattered my heart into a million pieces. My daddy was supposed to love me, and protect me. The man who he had become was a stranger, a stranger that I wish I had never met. After hearing that come out of his mouth, I remember looking at him with a gun to his head and thinking, well if this fucker doesn’t pull the trigger, i’m going to have to do it for him”

I think of all of us my grandmother took it the hardest. I remember her telling me all the time “h putana pou mas dialise to spiti”. Ofcourse I know that my grandma loves all her children equally, but it is no secret that she has a soft spot for my mom, they have a stronger bond. Seeing my mom become depressed and go through what she went through mad my yiayia extremely depressed as well. She would always tell me “maria, na eise kali yia na se xerete i mana sou, yiati mono se sas tha vri xara.” From then on I swore to her that I would try my hardest to make my mom proud, and of course I ended up breaking that promise.

With the non stop fighting in the house and the crying and the screaming and the yelling, I didn’t know what to do with myself. In the early 8th grade I fell into a depression. I felt like I wasn’t Maria anymore. I would wake up, not speak to anyone in the house, get dressed and leave. I would dread going home every single day. I had become very distant from my family. My brother and I no longer spoke, as well as my sister. Not even hi or a bye. I lost the two best friends I had at the age of 12, and that was too much for me to handle back then. With no family, and no sense of a loving home anymore, I turned to the one thing I thought could help me. Weed. I still remember the first time I got high so clearly. I was with my Best friend- soon to be future girlfriend Brenda. I have known her since kindergarten and we were joint at the hip. Me and her did everything together, from walk school, do laundry, go on vacations- she was like my other half. She was always a rowdier kid then me. Never doing homework, always getting in trouble, she really didn’t care about anything anyone had to say and she just “did her”. Of course, being my best friend, she knew everything that was going on at home. She was the one person I could call and cry to and she was the one person who could comfort me in the times where I felt like I was going to go crazy. I remember meeting up with her in the morning, my eyes were bloodshot and she smiled at me. “you’re gonna fucking love me” she said, and she passed me a skinny long brown stick looking thing. I immediately knew that I was about to get SMACKED. With the first couple of pulls I was in a different world. The colors seemed brighter, everything seemed funnier, and my stomach felt very empty. For the whole day I was laughing and joking with my friends and for once not worrying about anything. I wasn’t worrying about whether or not my mom was coming home. I wasn’t worrying about whether or not the power was going to be out when I got home (like it often was because my mom never had enough money to pay the bills). I was finally happy, and it felt so fucking good.

My smoking days continued, getting high was a must for me to be able to get through the day without having a mental breakdown. I started to realize how much fun I can have if I stopped being such a pussy. I was always scared of my mom, she literally scared the shit outta me. I was always afraid that she would get mad at me, and yell, take away my things, or even worse- hit me with the padofla. I came to just simply not give a fuck. What was she going to do? Hit me? It would sting for a minute but I’d get over it. Yell at me? I’d put my headphones in and that was the end of that. Take away my phone? I simply wouldn’t go home, and see how she liked it when I didn’t give her a call to let her know. When I stopped fearing my mom is when I realized that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. When I stopped caring in all is when I realized I wasn’t Maria anymore. All I cared about was getting high.

8th grade eventually came to an end, and of course I had failed every class. I vividly remember the ass whooping I got when I brought my report card home. The sting that was burning on my check after my mom slapped me, and for the first time in my entire life, I hit my mother back. Who the fuck did she think she was hitting me? I wasn’t 5 anymore. I was 13. A grown ass woman. If only I knew what I had coming.

That summer I spent in Greece with my cousins. My mom apparently had enough of my bullshit and didn’t want to “deal with my shit”. So she packed my suitcase and sent me off. Um, so sending me on vacation was a punishment now? I was on that plane before you could say “bye”. I went there a complete different person. My cousins as well, were also a little more rowdy, so of course I developed more bad habits during my vacation. They took my cigarette virginity, my clubbing virginity, my driving virginity, everything. I experienced a million new things that summer. I remember the countless nights we spent on the beach, building bonfires and smoking and drinking under the billions of stars. I remember when the Italian girls came over on the speed boat and we skinny dipped off the drafo into the cold ass midnight water. That summer opened my eyes to how much more there was to life than just school and reading and listening to mommy. I spent my night getting drunk with my cousins, dancing and playing pool at thios taverna. I spent my days smoking cigarettes and drinking frappe on the beach, tanning and swimming and just not giving a fuck about a single thing. Not to mention, I finally hit a growth spurt and in came the DD’s. My grandma says it was all the chicken I ate, but I think it was just about that time. I came back to the states feeling like a woman- and a total bad ass.

I arrived back in New York a day before school was going to start. This was it. I was finally going to be a high school student! I had been enrolled into Queens Vocational and Technical high school. Brenda was also accepted, so as well as elementary school, middle school and junior high school, we were going to spend our high school years together. Brenda and I had gotten “close” so to say before my vacation. The day before I left, she had kissed me and told me that she would be waiting for me when I got back. My first kiss and it was with a girl. What the fuck? We talked everyday on the phone and she kept telling me how much she really liked me. I always thought I liked her, but I kept denying it to myself because I thought I would just be weird. I didn’t want to make things between us awkward, because at the end of the day she was my best friend and I did love her. When I got back to NY, we admitted our feelings for each other and decided that we should just be together. I was excited to spend my high school years with a girl that was perfect for me. I was excited to grow to love her more than I did, and I had 4 whole years of high school to enjoy with my girlfriend.

They say that marijuana is a gateway drug, and whoever “they” are, they are so fucking right. Freshman year was the only year I actually did well in school. I smoked every day before school, but I still managed to go to all my classes and keep above an 80 average. I met my best friend Julie, who to this day still is the biggest pothead you will ever meet. Julie is like a sister. Iv known her for only 3 years but I feel like I knew her my whole life. I met Julie 2 months after her dad had died, so she too smoked all day to keep the pain on the down low. Her me and Brenda became the 3 amigos. We did everything together. Eat. Sleep. Smoke. Chill. Everything. I think its safe to say that I got involved with the wrong crowd around the end of freshman year. I befriended all the “crack heads” of QV and I started to get in a lot more trouble than the beginning of the year. I cut class to smoke all day, and I just stopped caring. I just wanted to get high with my girlfriend and my friends. And then smoking just didn’t cut it for Brenda anymore. She wanted us to move on to bigger and better things that summer. And I listened to the stupid bitch.

Rich man’s drug. Does that sound familiar? Pure, raw cocaine. That was what my summer was all about. It was Brenda’s idea of course, and at first I hesitated. Was I really ready to do this? Like silk she wrapped herself around my body and said the words that always made me cave. “If you love me you’ll do it”. I was up and ready. I’d do anything for her. With the first sniff, I became infatuated. The chills down my spine, the taste all the way in the back of my throat that made me crave for more and more, the smell of iron and blood deep in my nostrils- I was obsessed. My whole life became numb. In the literal sense. Cocaine made me number than I already was. I was fucking invincible. I could conquer cities. I felt like superwomen in the flesh and it felt fucking amazing. My summer days were a blur. To be completely honest, I don’t remember much. Girls. Sex. Parties. Coke. Liquor. Weed. Coke. Coke. Coke. Pure. Raw. Fucking. Coke.

I guess you can say I earned my “crack head” title. All I really gave a fuck about was being with Brenda and being high. That’s what mattered to me. I became very distant from everyone. I no longer spent any time at home; I would just go there to sleep. I would arrive home to find my mom crying on the front stoops, begging me to just come home. Of course, she didn’t know about the drugs. Well, I thought she didn’t. A mother knows when her child is up to something, no doubt. Even though she never fully admitted to me that she knows I did drugs, I know in my heart she knew. Maybe she was afraid I was just going to never show up home again if she said anything. Looking back at it now I feel like a complete dickhead. I was the reason my mom felt deeper and deeper into depression that summer. But at the time I could give a fuck less. All I cared about was Brenda and the new life she had created for me.

Sophomore year rolled around, and things got even more out of control. Somehow, the coke just didn’t cut it for me anymore. More. New. Better. I wanted to experience every drug there was. I wanted to feel all the different highs there were to feel. Xanax. Perks. Molly. Ecstasy. And everything changed when Julie introduced me to her friend Adam, the meth head.

Adam was from Jersey. Julie had met him through facebook, and they became very close very fast. He was a complete fucking loser. Dropped out of high school, didn’t work, and didn’t really do anything productive besides sell meth. And smoke it. A lot of it. Crystal meth is a drug that cannot be described. I simply cannot put into words the high I got for those three days after smoking it. If I thought coke was amazing, meth was like god himself opening the doors of heaven. I felt pure euphoria. And it felt so damn good. Till the crash. One time was all it took for me to get hooked. And the crash was the worst thing I had ever felt in my entire life. I remember looking in the mirror and legitimately not recognizing who I was. My skin was pale as fuck. My hair had thinned out and lots of it was falling out. My face was covered in pimples and craters and the bags under my eyes were something else. I would go days on end without sleeping. Eating. Thinking. I had dropped 35 pounds. But I didn’t care. The only way to stop the crash was more. More and more. I developed cracks in my teeth, big acne like holes all over my body. But I was oblivious to all of that, I just focused on the feelings and the rush and the pure happiness.

My life had spiraled out of control. But I was too caught up in frying my brain and partying every night to care. I failed every single one of my classes that year, every single marking period. I would go to school, pick up Brenda and walk right back out those double doors. Brenda and I would spend hours on end in her apartment; high on god knows what drug. And to be completely honest, I was happy with the way everything was going.

At this point in time I was a complete different person. I was no longer Maria. I was the drugs in my veins and the cigarette smoke in my lungs. I was the “I fucking love you” that spilled out of my mouth every time Brenda gave me another pull. Another pop. Another sniff. Another anything. My life revolved around this girl and the feelings she allowed me to feel.

The summer of last year is when everything fell completely apart. Caught up in my own little world, it had actually slipped my mind that drugs were illegal. It was a friend’s birthday and there were about 15 of us smoking on a rooftop. Because of all the noise (and probably because of the smell of weed that stunk up the whole block) the people living in the apartment building called the cops on us. We, oblivious to the fact that that we were all about to get arrested, continued smoking and laughing. My friends Justin gave me a baggie full of coke, and I put it in my bra, which is every girl’s pocket (duh). The cops eventually showed up and arrested all our stupid asses. They piled us into the big van and drove us all down to precinct 108. I was sitting there in handcuffs shitting bricks, because what was going to happen when this big black bitch in front of me searched me? I had a bad of coke in my tit for god’s sake! Moment of truth. They un-cuffed me, Brenda and the two other girls that were with us (they had us in a different holding cell than the guys) and made us stand next to each other. Jaylin. Denise. Brenda. I was next. The lady patted down my legs, my arms, my butt, my middle section, and then she grabbed the wire of my bra and shook it. My heart almost leaped out of my mouth. Nothing. Nothing fell out of my bra. At that moment I wanted to fall to my knees and sob and thank god over and over again for not fucking me over. I deserved it. I really deserved it. To this day I still don’t understand how I managed to do so much bad, but god still protected my stupid ass. But of course, in the moment I felt like a boss ass bitch, and I did something only the old Maria had the balls to do. I asked the officer to take me to the bathroom; I stuffed myself in a stall, and sniffed all the coke in that bag. Because I was Maria. And I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.

Hours and hours of waiting, and eventually my mom stormed into the precinct. So help me god. I would prefer being busted with coke then having to listen to my mom’s mouth all the way home. “MORI MALAKISMENI TI EXIS PATHI!?” Blah. Blah. Blah. She kept yelling and I was too coked up to care. Nothing fazed me anymore. I just wanted to go home, take a shower, and go to sleep. Despite being on drugs, I was exhausted.

About a week later I was sitting in English playing with Brenda’s hair when the classroom phone rang. My teacher told me to go to the principal’s office. If only I knew what was coming. I walk in and see my dad, mom, my AP Mr. Alikakos, and my principal Ms. Burg sitting at a round table. I am sooooooo fucked. My parents didn’t know I never went to school, because I would just get my official attendance and leave with Fran. My mom looked like she had been crying and my dad was just sitting there looking at the table top. “Maria please have a seat” I forced my wobbly legs to walk over to the table and plopped down next to Alikakos. “maria, you know all of us here care for you and only want whats in your best interest”. Fuck. “a teacher of yours has raised a concern. She says that she has seen you multiple times looking along the lines of under the influence, and has heard you talking about abusing drugs. Your attendance is close to non-existent- and you are never in any of your classes.” Oh my fuck. “Maria, we are here to help you. Your parents and the school are concernd for your wellbeing” the rest is a blur. All I remember was sobbing. Uncontrollable sobbing coming from me and my mom. The first thing that worried me is how much trouble I was going to get in. I thought I was going to the the ass whooping of my life. When we got home I went into my room and sobbed into my pillow. I remember crying so hard that I threw up. My mom came into the room and sat down next to me. I hadn’t noticed how much she had changed in two years. She looked tired. Frail, stressed, and tired. All my fault. She grabbed my face and looked at me and began… “ Maria mou, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me things. I am your mother. If you fuck up and you need help, you TELL me. Ego exo zisi tin zoi mou, ego thelo mono na ine ta pedia mou xaroumena. I will die before I let anything happen to you. Then she started asking me about boys and if I’ve had sex blah blah. I told her she DEFINITELY didn’t need to worry about that. She begged and pleaded me to tell her everything. Well actually, I kind of had no choice because she was going to drug test me and find out for herself. So I told her everything. Minus the part about me and Brenda of course. But I sat there for 3 hours and told my mommy everything. And I cried and cried and she hugged me and cried. I missed my mommy’s arms. It was the first time in years I had felt so at home again. I wished and wished that I could stay in that moment forever. And then she hit me with the fucking word that I hate hearing so much. Rehab. Her and my father had already made phone calls. And that was the end of that. I had no say. Rehab would be my home for the next months.

Withdrawals.

Nothing can compare to the hell I went through in those month. No amount of vocabulary will ever add up to the pain, the physical and mental torture I had to endure. The first week wasn’t that back. I distracted myself from the urge to take drugs by the stupid activities they would make us do like arts and crafts… what the fuck was I? 4? I would find company in talking to my roommate Jessica who was a herione addict. She had been there for 19 days already and swore that everyone there was out to get her. Crack head. I felt like I didn’t belong in there. Up until about 2 and a half weeks into the program when it all started. Late at night, I broke out in sweat. It felt like someone grabbed my stomach and was twisting it and trying to pull it out of my body. The ringing in my ears made me want to scream and kick, but my body was weak. My hands were shaking. My vision was blurred. The blood in my veins was boiling. On fire. The tears rolled down my cheeks without my consent. I literally felt like I was dying. For a good 3 hours I would lay on my bed in complete agony. Turning, holding myself, trying not to scream out in pain. What had I become. Who the fuck was I? Had I really been doing all the things I was doing? It felt like I was deep in a fairytale and I had just been pushed back into reality. I didn’t like it at all.

Deep depression.

Everybody uses the term “I felt like killing myself” lightly. But do you know what it actually feels like to want to die. To legitimately feel like there is no reason to be alive anymore. Everyday I would curse at god for waking me up. every night I would just ask him to take my life. Weather it was in my sleep or while I was in the shower. I simply did not want to live anymore. I had lost myself. I didn’t know who maria was anymore. The guilt I felt for the things I had done and the sadness I felt crushed my heart to the point where it was hard to breath. The amount of times I actually contemplated killing myself was beyond me. The one thing that held me back was that I knew my poor mom would feel like it was all her fault. For sending me away. The days dragged on and on. All I had was time. Time to think. Time to reflect. What the fuck had I done. Is this how I wanted to live? My cousin who had come to visit told me something that I will remember till the day I die. “maria, yiayia’s getting older now… do you really want her to die knowing you’re addicted to drugs?” Once the words flew out of her mouth my heart shattered. How much of a fucking cunt could I be. My grandma raised me since I was 40 days old. She waits on me on her hand and knees and this is how I repay her? I have never hated a person more then I hated myself during that time.

Rehab was over and I was finally back home. I don’t like talking about my experiences there at all. I saw things I wish I had never seen, and if I thought my life sucked? A girl tried to take her life in front of me and I could just sit there and watch. The people in there had stories that would bring a serial killer to tears. two of the girls there were raped by their fathers. One girl was forced to have sex for money in the basement BY HER OWN MOTHER. The shit I heard was beyond fucked up and really changed my view on life. Poor me. My dad cheated on my mom. Get the fuck over it. I was fortunate to not have gone through the thing most people have, and I thank god every day to keep protecting me.

Back to school that September, I returned to Queens Vocational with dread. I was tired of school. I was tired of everything. I wanted to jut stay under my covers all day and forget the world. Forget whats happened. I slipped further and further into depression, and nobody seemed to notice. Not even my therapist. I would go to her with all smiles and insist that I was doing better. “Yes I’m fine. No I don’t get urges. No I don’t try to hurt myself.” it didn’t really take a lot of convincing. I was eventually allowed to stop going to therapy and I couldn’t be happier. The fall of last year I gave Brenda the ultimatum. Either she left the drugs or I would leave her. The one time she proved her love to me, she stopped the drugs. I remember her going through the same things I went through. The nights we would spend curled up next to each other, her tiny frame shaking and sweating and all I heard were her sobs. How much it broke my heart to hear her cry. I had grown to love this girl so much. Despite all the things we had been through together, she was more than my girlfriend. She was my best friend. I never wanted to see anything bad happen to her. That’s why I tried to help her as much as I did. I bent over backwards to make her happy, because I knew at the end of the day she would do the same for me.

Junior year, I still slacked off. Of course, I didn’t use anymore, but I did smoked weed, which made me very lazy. I had no motivation to do anything anymore. Due to the fact that I had fucked up so much and there was no hope for me passing junior year, or graduating on time. I was back to where I was the prior year, and of course everyone was disappointed in me. My mom cried and cried and told me I had promised her I was going to do better. And finally tired of being the shitty version of myself, I decided it was time for me to own the fuck up and grow the fuck up. That was in February, when I finally transferred to queens academy.

My first day in queens academy and I knew I was going to like the school. I was a loner of course, but that was how I liked it. I kept to myself and just focused on my work. I got along with all of my teachers. It was reliving to know that I could have this second change, and that nobody in this school was judging me for my mistakes. The past matters, but it does not define the person who you are, or the person who you will become. All that matters is that one can learn from their mistakes, and not make the same ones over and over. “ Let your past make you better, not bitter” was my new motto. All the shit I had been through motivated me to get my ass to school and WORK. Make up for all the work I hadn’t done. Make everyone who ever questioned me feel stupid. Make everyone who ever called me a crack head regret it. Most of all, it was about time I tried to make my mom proud.

With my educational life changing for the better, so did my social life. I met new people and made new friends. One of my closest friends at first was Henry. Henry is the most kind hearted person I have ever met. We immediately hit it off and began to spend lots of time together. As a matter of fact, the first time I spoke to him was in English class. Ms. Irene made us do a stupid rotating circle thing, and now that I think back I am so grateful to have actually participated, because I met what is today a very important person to me. He has been there for me through so much. Through my break up with Brenda, to even when I was upset with things going on at home, he has helped me and given me a shoulder to cry on. I find comfort and talking to him. It like his voice alone can calm me down and help me breath.

Eventually, after spending time together and stealing a few kisses, he asked me to be his girlfriend. To be completely honest, I was scared. I’d only been with a girl before. Like been, been. If you know what I mean. I knew though that I could trust in him, and I trust in the fact that he made me happy. It was all really new to me. The first time with a boy. I never thought I could get butterflies the way I do when we kiss, or actually care so much about a guy, but here I am head over heels for him. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am finally happy. And it’s because of him.

I am proud of the person I have now become. I have pushed myself more than I could ever be pushed. I have proved to my mom, and myself, that there’s more to me than just drugs and partying. That I can be whatever the fuck I want to be and that no one is going to tell me otherwise. I am my own person, and my past will not define me. I have grown and I have learned and I am ready to move forward in my life, preferably with Henry by my side.

As I peered into the open casket, I saw the body of my long-time friend and “church fixture” as one of the deacon remarked, Natalia Kargalsky. There she was lying quietly in a cotton grey dress with little birds in flight. Her hands united over a wooden cross, icons of the Mother of God of Iveron around her head like a halo. She had the look of the dead—the sleep that is not sleep. A lifeless body holds so much mystery; it is almost as intriguing as an embryo in its early stages.

On a podium next to her casket lay an arrangement of knick knacks or relics from her life—a carnet de identidad from the years her parents emigrated to Argentina, black-and-white photos of her and her parents with the mountains of Bohemia in the distance, a passport from Russia. There was a collage of pictures of her from her youth. I gazed long and hard at the profile shot—of that younger Natalia, the Natalia I had not had the pleasure of knowing, with a full head of curly hair and a smart radiance; she is just about to speak or else caught in the act of speaking in that shot. Before us lay the stray fragments of our Natalia, the grandmotherly figure we visited in the nursing home and rehabilitation center on Sundays after church. The one who loved cats and St. John of San Francisco, whose crooked fingers curled upwards but were manicured pink. Here was the Natalia I had known and the one I had not. The little old lady in a wheelchair who would bark at us, “It’s OK. Go go. Goodbye” shooing us out when she decided we had overstayed our welcome, who had become “kooky” at the end according to the deacon who had become her health proxy. Here was the church fixture, the little short-haired spinster and retired librarian from the New York Public Library, I thought I knew all about. Yet from the relics of her living I discovered her mother had abandoned her in Argentina, that she had kept the two thick braids of light brown hair wrapped the Ukrainian way around her head her entire life and was taking them with her into the grave. I found out she had not married because of the guilt trip here mother piled on her not to leave her alone in her old age. Indeed, I came to discover Natalia’s life during her death.

Natalia’s panikhida was held at Peter Terema’s Funeral Home in the East Village. It is one of the ironies of ironies that a most conservative old-school matron would be remembered in one of the hippest New York City neighborhoods. On the block of the funeral home the young hipsters peer into boutiques of handcrafted silver jewelry, hold arms outstretched under the tattoo inker’s needle, wait in line for a scoop of rainbow flavored cones at Gay Ice Cream parlor, hang out on the sidewalks smoking and flirting—the block throbs with the sweet birds of youth. A few doors down sticking out like a dark thumb in a flat façade after a few steep steps is St Mary’s Orthdox Church, a mosaic imitation of the Virgin holding the Christ Child over its main entrance and the leaden outlines of a saintly figure with his back to the street in the dark stained-glass window to the right. The Church once a bastion for immigrants from the Ukraine and Russia now stands like an anachronism with gay couples walking hand-in-hand and purple crested creative types zipping on ten-speed bikes. Out of living vibrant East 7th Street next to the bustle of the cutting edge side by side to the stubborn fact that all that lives is born to die.

It is the gift of the dead that they bring the living together. Our parish had gone through a schism of sorts, nothing new in Christian circles. We had started out as a closely-knit church, but we had broken up into three different factions branching out into three separate churches. Yet at her wake, we became united again much like a dysfunctional family under one circus tent. At the wake were chatting away members I had not seen for years, asking about kids and health and extended family members. Those who had separated on not such the greatest of terms were now making polite conversation as if nothing had happened. I was surprised and a bit taken aback; the mood was rather giddy, not somber or silent. It was a bit like being in one of the bars on the block except with no drinks, just a dead body lying in a casket. We hugged and kissed and smiled at one another just like old times. “Natalia would have wanted it that way,” a parish member said. Another irony indeed. That a single, crochety old lady who never married, and had spent the last ten years of her life languishing in a long-term care facility could bring so many different types—an antique collector from Panama of Chinese descent, a graphic designer from the MidWest, a UN director of Russian-Ukranian- Sierra Leonean descent, a Puerto Rican theology student, an Irish-American senior home administrator, a Greek educator, and even a fiery divorcee from Coney Island who considered the deceased a very good friend. Just like the best of bars in the East Village.

I had come to Natalia’s wake reluctantly. I had dreaded the emotional malaise of having to see death stark and naked before me. It would have reminded me too painfully of my father’s funeral two years ago. I had also come guiltily. You see, I had been meaning to visit her in the nursing home where she was placed on hospice ever since I got the news in the form of a text from the other parishioners that she would be leaving us shortly. I tried to go one day after another, but something always came up. Monday we had my college class to teach; Tuesday we had meetings until late; Wednesday night class; Thursday I came so tired I sputtered out convincing myself that I MUST go on Friday. And Friday morning, I left the house taking with me the oil from the vigil lamp of St. John who I had visited and stuffing it in my coat pocket with the clear intention to visit her after work. But by Friday afternoon, my mother was haggling me to rush with her to the Office of Human Resources to find out why “Obama” dropped her Medicaid. By the time I got back it was six o’clock and by then I had run out of excuses and energy. I don’t remember what with taking care of the baby and the house that had gone to Hades. I should have kept my intention and my strength to visit her on that Friday, because on that Friday she passed away. It was too late by Saturday morning to go and visit her when I was off work. She was gone. I never had the chance to say goodbye. And with all the hecticness of the working day, even on the day of the wake, after parent-teacher conferences I did not even have the chance to find a flower shop to pick up the flowers I would have wanted to place on her coffin. I came even to her wake empty handed.

But the dear, the sweet mother that she was, she wound up giving me a gift instead. She gave me to realize that this business and busyness we take to be so important really gets in the way of what is really important. That people must always come first. No ifs ands or buts. That you must conserve your energy for what is important and not waste it during the course of the day like Martha grumbling that she had to do all the dirty work. That we have to simplify our life so we can sneak in a visit to little old ladies in nursing homes. Natalia gave me to realize that a funeral does not have to be this somber thing, that it can be a celebration of life and the awakening of it as a deep mystery. When I walked back to my car after the wake and gazed on the buzzing pavement of the East Village, I came away with a feeling of vigor, with joy to know I was alive and the appreciation of life in all its mundane complexities.

By far Natalia’s greatest gift was that she gave me to realize that her body stretched out, “she looks good” the deacon even remarked, as if she was still alive, this body cold and stiff its hands crumpled and fingers curled, it was Natalia but it was not Natalia. It was like the husk of the corn or the shell of a peanut. That was her but she was not there. I think this is why we were so at ease in her cadaver’s presence. Because she gave us to know that what we came to behold was just the envelope. The spirit had left and we knew it. And while we were there celebrating and remembering her life, her real life had begun. And though there is no proof we could point to with a magnifying glass, we knew. We felt that she was OK and so we were at peace and in a good mood. She had wanted to die, I learned, from a parishioner. She was tired and wanted to be near God. Here again is the irony—that life and birth should be different sides of the same coin. I know how it feels like when after the 42nd week of pregnancy, no matter how scary and uncertain the birth process can be, you and the baby get to the point where you both want birth. You want to be born. Facing death, if you are lucky, should be the same way. You get to the point where you are tired of living and death no matter how scary and uncertain, you want to go through with it. Birth and death become portals to a new life. And that gives you courage and peace.

These are the gifts that the dead confer upon the living. Natalia’s wake became an awakening. We went home drunk with life.

Dearest Natalia,

We will miss you. You in all your mystery. Your love of cats and the Church. Your crotchetiness and your crocheted blankets. We miss you and wait to see you again. We love you very much. Remember us. Pray for us as we pray for you.

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